I kept watching the light, which was a long one, and I thought it would never change. At last it did, and the traffic in the other lanes began to move. Not ours. The sedan sat, and we all sat behind it. Drivers in cars ahead and behind began to lean on their horns in a demonstration of annoyance, but the gray car ignored the demonstrators with impervious arrogance. It simply waited and waited until it was ready to move, and it wasn’t ready until the instant the light went yellow. Then it shot into the intersection, wheeled left with whining tires, and was gone down the thoroughfare before I could curse or cry or even cluck.
Other drivers, no doubt, wondered what had promoted this deliberate outrage. Not I. I knew that old Percy had been neatly slipped, and I wondered why. I wondered, that is, why the pair in the gray sedan should even have been aware of my presence on earth, let alone on their collective tail. Was I guilty of glaring error? Had, perhaps, my ears flapped at the bar when I strained to hear their conversation, what little there had been? Did even ethical private detectives have a distinctive smell of which they were unaware? And, grim reflection, was I now entitled to keep all of the five C’s that I had been paid to do a simple job that I had simply failed to do? It was true that no conditions had been attached to the fee, but it was equally true that I hadn’t earned it, or even enough of it to buy a hamburger sandwich. In fact, I conceded bitterly, I ought to pay damages.
Well, no good in crying. No good, either, in trying to run down the other car. I had been slipped, and that was that. The only thing to do was to find a phone and call Dulce Coon and make a full and abject confession of professional idiocy. I crossed the intersection, found a turn, and made my way downtown again by another route. The only telephone I could think of that wouldn’t cost me a dime was the one in my office. I went there and sat at my desk backwards and looked at the brick wall across the alley. I thought about what had happened, and how I could explain it in a way that would salvage at least some of my dignity, if none of my fee.
Something had gone wrong, that was clear, and it didn’t take a better brain than mine to know what. I had been expected and spotted and duped, that was what. But how? And why? And just when? The best explanation, so far as I could see, was that Dulce Coon, sometime between yesterday and today, had somehow given the business away. For that matter, it was possible that she had been followed through the rain to my office. If so, she was partly responsible for my fiasco, and didn’t that give me a legitimate claim to my fee? Well, there was a way to find out. The way was at hand, and there was no point in waiting any longer to take it. Turning around to my desk in my swivel, I consulted the directory and dialed a number, and somewhere in the house at 15 Corning Place a telephone was answered by someone that I assumed to be a maid.
Was Mrs. Coon at home?
Sorry. Mrs. Coon wasn’t. Who was calling, please?
Mr. Percy Hand was calling. When was Mrs. Coon expected?
That wasn’t known. Would Mr. Hand care to leave a message?
Mr. Hand wouldn’t.
I tried again an hour later, after five o’clock. Still no luck. The same maid gave me the same answers. This time, I asked her to have Mrs. Coon call Mr. Hand immediately upon her return home. The maid agreed, but the tone of her voice implied a polite skepticism of Mrs. Coon’s compliance.
I went downstairs to a lunchroom and bought a couple of corned beef sandwiches and a pint of coffee in a cardboard container. I carried the sandwiches and the coffee back to my office and had my dinner, pardon the expression, at my desk. I had what was left of the coffee with a couple of cigarettes. The container was drained and the second butt stubbed when the telephone began to ring, and it was Dulce Coon at last.
“I had word to call you,” she said. “What do you want?”
“I tried twice before to get you, but you weren’t home. I thought you’d want a report.”
“Go ahead and report. Did you see Benedict and the woman?”
“I saw them. They met at the bar in the Normandy Lounge, just as you said they would.”
“Did they leave together?”
“They did, two highballs and a martini later. They walked from the hotel to a garage and drove off in a gray sedan.”
“That’s Benedict’s car. Did you follow them?”
“After a fashion.”
“What do you mean by that? Either you did or you didn’t. Where did they go?”
“Briefly, I lost them. Or, to put it more accurately, they lost me. They ran a yellow and left a long line of traffic, including me, sitting on a red.”
“Why should they do that?”
“A good question. I was about to ask it myself. That tricky business at the light was planned. They did it to shake a tail, and I’d like to know how they knew they had one. Did you give it away?”
“Certainly not.”
“Somehow or other, he must have got onto it. Are you sure you weren’t followed to my office yesterday?”
“There was no reason why I should have been.”
“You said you overheard his conversation with the woman on an extension. Maybe he knew you were listening.”
“That’s absurd. If he had heard me lift the receiver, he’d have quit talking, and I didn’t hang up until after he did.”
“Nevertheless, he knew. Somehow he knew he was being tailed.”
“Obviously. Aren’t you, perhaps, just trying to make an excuse for yourself? You must have bungled the job by making yourself conspicuous or something. I thought following people was a kind of basic thing that detectives learned from their primer. It seems to me that any good one ought to know how to do it.”
“All right. So I’ll have to go back to kindergarten. Don’t worry, though. I’ll see that most of the fee is returned to you.”
“That won’t be necessary. I offered the fee without conditions.”
“It’s a lot of money for practically nothing.”
“I’ve spent more for less. I can afford it. Besides, this may not be the end of it. If there’s something very simple that you can do for me later, I’ll get in touch.”
“In the meanwhile,” I said, “I’ll be studying my primer.”
She hung up, and I hung up, and we left it at that. I tried to think of something simple to do with the evening, and the simplest thing I could think of was to go home and sleep, something which is even pre-primer in its simplicity. So I bought a pint of bourbon and took it to bed with me. Sometime after ten I went to sleep, and slept until almost seven the next morning.
At my office, I read a morning paper. Then I had a client who had a minor job to offer, and the job, which doesn’t matter, took me away for the rest of the morning. After a businessman’s special, I returned to the office and found the reception room full of Detective-Lieutenant Brady Baldwin, who tends to accumulate excessive fat around the belt buckle but none whatever between the ears. My relationship with Brady was good. Indeed, my relationship with all the city’s official guardians was good. The reason, I think, was that we shared roughly the same brackets on the income-tax schedule. No class war where we were concerned.
“Hello, Brady,” I said. “What brings you here?”
“Nothing brings me,” he said. “Someone sent me.”
“That’s what comes from being discreet and efficient. You build a reputation. I’ve got a million references, Brady.”
“Well, that wasn’t quite the way this particular reference was. I’ve been talking with Mrs. Benedict Coon III.”
“You can’t please everybody. She didn’t have to sic the cops on me, though. I offered to return most of the fee.”
“I don’t know anything about fees. Myself, I work on a salary. Someday I may get a pension. Invite me in, Percy. I’ve got a question or two.”
“Sure. Come on in.”
We went into the office, and Brady uncovered his naked skull and put the lid on a corner of my desk. He took a cigar out of the breast pocket of his coat, looked at it a moment and put it back.
“Mrs. Coon,” he said, “gave you a job yesterday.”
“The job was yesterday. She gave it to me the day before.”
“Picking up her husband and a woman in the Normandy Lounge, and following them wherever they went.”
“That was the job.”
“She says you lost them.”
“I didn’t lose them. They lost me. No matter, though. The result was the same.”
“Whichever way, it’s too bad. You might have seen something interesting.”
“I doubt it. You can’t just invade privacy for something entertaining to look at.”
“True. I’m glad you recognize your limitations, Percy. But murder, however entertaining, has no right to privacy.”
“Murder!” I thought for a second that he was merely making an academic observation, but I should have known better. Brady wasn’t given to them. “Are you telling me that he killed her?”
“Not he her. She him.”
“Damn it, Brady, that doesn’t figure. She was blackmailing him. Why the devil should she eliminate her source of income?”
“I’ve been asking myself that. There are a few good answers, when you stop to think about it. The best one, for my money, is based on the old chestnut that the worm sometimes turns. Say he’d decided to come clean, at whatever cost to himself, and to see that she got what was coming to her. It’s not hard to find a motive there.”
“If that were true, why did he meet her? Why didn’t he call in the cops and be done with it once and for all?”
“Maybe he didn’t make up his mind until the last minute. Worms do a lot of squirming on the hook, you know.”
“Sure. So she shot him. Just like that. She had a gun in her purse, of course. Nothing odd in that. All women carry them.”
“Not all. Some. Especially the ones who play around with blackmail. I wish you wouldn’t indulge in sarcasm, Percy. It doesn’t suit you. Besides, who said he was shot?”
“Didn’t you?”
“I don’t think so.”
“I guess I might as well confess. I’ve read about murderers giving themselves away like this, but I never thought it would happen to me. The guilty knowledge was just too much for me.”
“Oh, come off, Percy. It was a natural enough assumption. It’s pretty obvious that she couldn’t poison him in an automobile, and it would have taken an Amazon to choke him to death. He wasn’t any muscle man, but he could at least have fought off a woman.”
“She could have stabbed him or cracked his skull.”
“Maybe. But she didn’t. She was carrying a .25 caliber gun, and she shot him with it—in the back of the head.”
“That’s crazy. What kind of man turns his back on a blackmailer?”
“He was careless, I guess. Why worry about figuring these things out, when you only have to ask. As soon as we find the woman, that is.”
“You haven’t found her yet?”
“We don’t even know her full name, or what she looks like. That’s where you come in. Mrs. Coon says you can give us a description.”
“That I can, and you couldn’t be shot in the head by a choicer piece. Fairly tall. Custom built. None of your assembly line jobs. Pale blond hair, almost shoulder length. When I saw her, she was wearing a dark red suit with a skirt that showed off her legs, and they deserved it.”
“Chassis can be disguised. Hair can be cut and dyed. It would be helpful if you had spent more time looking at her face.”
“Have you been in the Normandy Lounge lately? I can tell you that it’s just a little lighter than a cave. I tried to get a good look at her face, even in the mirror behind the bar, but all I can tell you is that it went well with the rest of her.”
“You followed them, didn’t you? It must have been lighter outside.”
“As you say, I followed them. They were ahead, and I was behind. Would you care for an accurate and detailed description of her stern?”
“No thanks. I wouldn’t want you to go poetic on me.” Brady reached for his hat and slapped it on his head, a seasoned veteran of many a year. If the reference is ambiguous, take your choice. “Thanks for trying, Percy. Next time I’ve got a few minutes to waste, I’ll look you up.”
“Wait a minute, Brady. So maybe I blew the job. We all have our bad days. At least you can fill me in on what I missed. From what you said, I assume that Coon was shot in the car that he was driving.”
“You assume right. It was parked on a dead-end road northeast of town. They’d apparently stopped there to wind up their business, whatever it was. Well, she wound it up, all right. Permanently. He was found early this morning, behind the wheel, with a hole in his head, slumped over against the door. It’s really a county job, but we’re lending a hand. Chances are, most of the investigation will have to be done in the city.”
“Any leads at all on the woman?”
“Why, sure. You just gave us a couple. She’s got blond hair and pretty legs.”
After which rather caustic remark, he heaved himself afoot and took himself off. I turned a hundred eighty degrees in my chair, looked into the alley, and wondered if it wouldn’t be a good idea to jump out the window. With my luck, however, I would probably suffer no more than bruises and abrasions.
I’ll not deny that I was feeling better. Somehow or other, my own fault or not, Benedict Coon III and his blonde charmer had spotted old Percy and played him for a chump, and Percy was hurt. He wanted to try again and do better.
Benedict was out of it, of course. He was lying in the morgue with a hole in his head. My job was done, or not done, and there was nothing left to do. Unless, perhaps, Dulce Coon would care to have me earn my fee by trying to find the elusive charmer who had killed her husband. That was, I thought, at least a possibility. I might not do any good, but chances were I wouldn’t do any harm, either, and it was, after all, already paid for.
I decided that I would run out to 15 Corning Place and apply for the job. I put on my hat and went.
* * * *
Corning Place was a long ellipse with an end cut off. The street entered at one side of the truncated end and came out the other side of the same end. In the center of the ellipse was a wide area of lush grass and evergreen shrubs, and here and there a stone bench. Outside the ellipse, forming an elegant perimeter, were the deep lawns and fancy houses of the people who could afford to live there.
Number fifteen was as fancy as any, two and a half stories of gray stone, with a wide portico protecting a section of the drive on the south end. I drove my clunker boldly up the drive and left it, without apology, under the portico. Farther back, I could see, the drive flared out in a wide concrete apron in front of a garage big enough for four cars below, and a servant or two in quarters above. I went up shallow steps from the portico and along a wide veranda to the front door. I rang and waited. Pretty soon the door was opened by a maid who asked me what I wanted.
“I’d like to see Mrs. Benedict Coon III,” I said. “Mr. Percy Hand calling.”
The maid was sorry, but Mrs. Benedict Coon III was seeing no one. She was lying down.
“It’s very important,” I said, exaggerating a little. “It’s urgent that I see Mrs. Coon at once.”
The maid hesitated, her expression indicating polite skepticism. It was evident that she had never seen anything important come wrapped in wilted worsted with frayed cuffs. There was always, however, an outside chance that I was legitimate. The maid finally said she would inquire, which was all the concession I could expect. I was permitted to stand in the hall with my hat in my hands while she went up a wide flight of stairs, elegantly curving, to make the inquiry.
The house was still. In the stillness, a stern citizen in oils looked down upon me with hard blue eyes. Benedict I or II, I guessed. I took two steps forward, and he was still looking at me. I backed up, and the eyes followed. Annoyed by my evasive maneuvers, the eyes were frigidly critical. The maid came down the stairs, fortunately, and rescued me.
Mrs. Coon had consente
d to see me. Would I please wait in the library?
I would, and I did, after the maid had shown me where it was. I waited in the midst of a dozen high windows, most of them draped, and several thousand shelved books, most of them, judging by their orderly arrangement against the walls, seldom or never read. A blond head appeared suddenly around the high, winged back of a chair near a window. The head was followed into view by a body, and they both belonged, head and body, to a young man wearing glasses, and holding a book folded over an index finger. With his free hand, the young man removed his glasses, and examined me curiously.
“Who are you?” he asked, as if he found me somehow incredible.
“Percy Hand,” I said. “Mrs. Coon asked me to wait for her in here.”
“Really? I didn’t think Dulce was seeing anyone. The police have been here, you know. They took her downtown to identify old Benny. A grim business. Very exhausting.”
“I know. I won’t disturb her very long.”
“I wish you wouldn’t. Dulce’s taking it calmly enough, but you never know how close she may be to breaking. A remarkable woman, Dulce. You know what happened?”
“Yes. As you said, a grim business.”
“Well, old Benny asked for it, I guess. He who dances and all that. Whoever would have dreamed that he was playing around? My name is Martin Farmer, by the way. I’m a kind of shirttail cousin. Remotely related.”
I said I was glad to know him, which was a polite way of saying that I didn’t give a damn one way or another. The hall door opened, and Dulce Coon came in. She was wearing a simple black dress and had slipped her feet into soft-soled flats for comfort. Her dark hair, presumably just off the pillow, was still slightly tousled, as if she had done no more to repair it than comb it with her fingers. She didn’t offer me her hand, but neither did she seem to hold a grudge.
“How are you, Mr. Hand?” she said. “Marty, what are you doing here? I thought you had gone out.”
“I’ve been reading.” Martin Farmer lifted the book, still marked at his place with an index finger, as evidence. “Are you feeling better, Dulce?”
The Second Fletcher Flora Mystery Megapack Page 22
